Baby & Bump (The This & That Series)

by Moss, Brooke

  Fletcher grabbed a bag of coffee grounds. “Isn’t everyone’s mom intense?”

  “Mine takes the cake.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “She has a huge collection of stuff.”

  Crinkles appeared on either side of his eyes. “My mother collects bells. They’re all over the house. Whenever you shut a cupboard or closet door, the whole house jingles.”

  “I can beat that,” I challenged. “My mother’s walls are lined with hundreds of Cabbage Patch dolls, and she has an entire filing cabinet filled with birth certificates for each and every one.”

  Fletcher released a low whistle. “Wow. Birth certificates. That is intense.”

  “Told ya.” I tossed a loaf of white bread into the cart, looked up at Fletcher, then replaced it with a whole grain loaf. Didn’t want the good doctor to think I wasn’t nourishing my unborn child.

  “Who’s the father?” he asked. When I scowled, he quickly added, “Of the Cabbage Patch dolls? If she’s the mother, who is the father?”

  “My deceased father,” I replied. “Though, I’m sure she’d have Pastor Irm be the father, if she thought she could get away with it.”

  “Who’s Pastor Irm?”

  We stopped next to the small display of fresh flower bundles, and I studied Fletcher as he examined a bouquet of bright yellow daisies. “Pastor Irm is the reverend in the church I grew up in. My mother’s in love with him.”

  He raised his blue eyes to meet mine. “Are they dating?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “They’re both widowed, and devoted to their dead spouses like a couple of martyrs.”

  “But she’s in love with her pastor?” He picked up two bunches of daisies. One white, and one yellow. “Which ones do you like?”

  Holy Hannah! Was he buying me flowers? I pointed to the white ones and started planning which vase I was going to put them in when I got home. “Yes. She has been for years. My brothers and I tease her all the time, but she won’t admit it.”

  Fletcher put the yellow daisies back. “Why not? Will you and your brothers be upset?”

  “Not at all.” I laughed. “Actually, it would be a relief. Maybe if she found love, she would stop obsessing over our lives a little bit. Plus, it would be nice to see her happy. She’s really lonely.”

  His smile returned. “Maybe she’ll be happy when she has a new grandbaby to enjoy.”

  Nodding, I led him up to the counter, where a white haired woman started scanning my groceries. “I think so. Though she’s none to pleased that her daughter is single and pregnant.”

  “Lots of single women have children,” he said. “It isn’t unheard of.”

  I offered him a one-shouldered shrug. “She’s sort of old fashioned. She still calls her answering machine the recorder-thingy, and keeps her remote control in a kitchen drawer, because she’s afraid the laser will start a fire.”

  “Wow.” Fletcher stifled a laugh. “Well, maybe she’ll adapt with time.”

  “Here’s hoping.” I handed the old woman my debit card, and eyeballed my—er, the—flowers. Okay, so I had no reason to believe the flowers were for me, but I couldn’t help myself. We were getting along so well. And when he’d touched me, it felt like being shocked by fresh laundry coming out of the dryer. “Either that, or she’ll use it to guilt trip me into going to church with her every week for the rest of her life.”

  Snickering, Fletcher placed his groceries on the belt next to mine. “You’re something else. Do you know that?”

  That’s good, right? I tried to present him with a flirtatious, over-the-shoulder glance, but it came off twitchy. “So, got a hot date tonight, doctor?”

  His blue eyes rolled down to the flowers, and a lovely shade of red saturated his cheeks.

  Ask me to dinner. Like… now. Ask me. I’ll say yes. I swear I will.

  “I, uh, well, yeah.” He looked up at me, his gaze veiled with thick blonde lashes.

  Blinking at him, I waited. This was the moment. My obstetrician was going to ask me to go get coffee. Or maybe even dinner. My stomach clenched. Would he ask me to dinner? And if so, would I have any pants to wear that closed over my belly?

  Fletcher cleared his throat, jolting me out of my thoughts. “I do have a date. With…”

  I stood up on my tippy toes without even meaning to.

  “…Marisol.”

  Thump. My heels landed back on the floor, and I pressed my lips together. Though I couldn’t be sure, I thought I saw Fletcher wince. It was quickly covered up with a sympathetic smile that bordered on sheepish. It was almost like he wanted me to high five him. That Marisol, eh? She’s a hot one. Can you blame me?

  “Oh!” My squeaky voice had returned. With a vengeance. “Right. So. That will be great. Or, fun. That will be great fun.” I stopped speaking, but he just looked at me. The longer the pause went on, the more self-conscious I felt, so my words came even faster. “Yeah…so, Marisolwilllovetheflowers,I’msureofit.Supergoodfuntimes.”

  “You think so?” He handed two twenties to the old lady.

  “’Course.” I didn’t bother to tell him that Marisol hated daisies. She said that they were cheap, and that if a man wanted to get laid, he’d better show up with flowers that cost at least seventy-five bucks.

  We both grabbed our bags, and sauntered out into the sunshine. “Well,” I sighed, forcing my face to smile. “Good luck on your hot date.”

  “Thanks.” He looked at me for a beat longer than necessary. “Listen, it was really cool running into you like this.”

  My heart squeezed. I wanted to wrap myself around his leg and beg him to hang out with me listening to Elvis CDs and eating saltines all night. Instead of making out with Marisol on her overpriced Italian leather couch. But the nausea churning in my abdomen reminded me that having a raging crush on my OB wasn’t exactly rational. “Agreed. Have… have a good night, Fletcher.”

  He waved, then strolled away, his backside practically glowing in his faded jeans. An image of those jeans crumpled in a heap on the hardwood floor next to Marisol’s bed flashed through my mind. Shaking my head, I turned in the other direction and shuffled back to my Volkswagon.

  It was me, Elvis Presley, and the saltines tonight. Alone.

  Chapter Eight

  “What the what?” Dropping the rubber spatula I’d been folding shredding zucchini into egg whites with, I pressed my palms to my pelvis.

  Marisol looked at me from across the stainless steel prep table. “Something wrong with your girlie bits, Lex?”

  I looked up at her. “Something, uh, tickles.”

  She shook her head, her glossy brown hair dancing. “There’s an ointment for that, you know.”

  I winced. “No. Not like that. Like inside.”

  Her expertly lined eyes widened. “Dear Lord, is it trying to get out? You’re hardly even fat.”

  The glass door to the Eats and Treats kitchen swung open. “Hi, sorry I’m late.” Candace flitted into the room in a pair of sweat pants and a tank top. “Aubrey cried when I left her with the babysitter, so I was late for yoga class. Then I didn’t have a clean shirt, so I had to scrounge around the laundry room for twenty minutes.”

  Marisol nodded pointedly at me. “You see what your life is going to become.”

  Candace ignored her and dropped some bags onto the table. “Sorry I’m late for our lunch date. Which begs me to ask why in the heck am I bringing lunch to you guys, when you run a catering company?”

  Marisol’s shoulders rose and fell. “I didn’t want to eat my own cooking.”

  “You’re so weird,” Candace scoffed. “I brought deli sandwiches. Lexie, I had no idea what to get for you, since the only thing that doesn’t make you sick is—” She stopped speaking when she saw me my bewildered expression and my hands cupping my abdomen. “What? What’s wrong? Are you all right? Are you having cramps? Spotting? Do you need to lie down?”

  A snort came from Marisol’s direction. “Chill out, Doctor-High-Strung, the little critter’s just doing some
Tae Bo.”

  Candace dove towards me. “You can feel it kicking? Really?” I nodded. “Oh, Lexie, this is so exciting!”

  “I know, I can’t believe it.” Tears filled my eyes as another little tickle quickened inside of me. “Ah! There it goes again.”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Marisol put her spoon down and rested her hand on her hip. “Aren’t you supposed to be huge before you feel it kicking? How many weeks along are you? Four weeks? Five?”

  I frowned. “Fourteen and three quarters.”

  “I felt all of my kids when I was ten weeks along.” Candace smiled smartly.

  “Well, that pregnancy book said you don’t feel the baby kicking until you’re like halfway done cooking the kid.” Marisol flicked a speck of zucchini off of her shirtsleeve. “I think you have gas, Lex.”

  “Since when do you read pregnancy books?” Candace asked, opening the lunch bags.

  Marisol rolled her eyes. “Since that’s all I can find around this place when I’m taking a break. All of the Cosmopolitan and People magazines are gone. Now all I can find everywhere is What To Expect When You’re Knocked Up, or—”

  “Expecting,” Candace and I said in unison.

  “Whatever. Anyway, so I’ve been reading it during my down time.” Marisol took the sandwich Candace held out to her. “Thanks. And it says that you can’t feel the baby kicking this early.”

  “Wait, it does not.” Candace handed me a sandwich. “I read that book at least a dozen times. It says that it can be anywhere between twelve and twenty weeks. Usually the thinner the woman is, the sooner she feels it. But I have a girlfriend who is heavy set, and she felt it at eleven weeks. It varies with every woman.”

  Marisol flared her nostrils at my abdomen. “I think Lex has to fart.”

  “I do not!” I took my sandwich from Candace, and tried not to smell it.

  “Well, what does it feel like?” Candace asked.

  Thinking for a moment, I opened my sandwich and peeled off every ingredient that was something I’d thrown up over the last three months. Lettuce, tomatoes, turkey, pickles, cheddar. I was left with a mayonnaise and sourdough bread sandwich. “It feels like flutters,” I explained. “Like baby bird wings are flapping around inside of me. Way, way down low.”

  “Like baby bird wings?” Marisol cracked up. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Now you’re just trying to wax poetic.”

  “Shush!” Candace turned so that her back was to our gorgeous Latina friend. “Ignore her.”

  I gasped. “There it goes again!”

  “Fart, Lex!” Marisol cackled, biting into her bread.

  Sticking my tongue out at her, I went back to my sandwich, my heart beating out of my chest. Even though I’d not had a period in four months, and even though I’d seen my little kidney bean’s heart flickering on the ultrasound screen, this new experience was blowing my mind.

  I could feel my child inside of me. Moving and dancing. Rolling and kicking. Growing and stretching. I’d created life within life—me, the nut with an ugly tee shirt collection and perpetual bedhead—and the gravity of that miracle pressed down on my chest like a boulder.

  I nibbled on the crust of my bread. “This is really…”

  Candace’s eyes danced. “Amazing, huh?”

  “It really is.” Blinking back tears, I grinned at my cousin.

  Marisol watched me with pointed curiosity, her arched brows pinching close together. “Dude. You’re really into this whole pregnancy thing, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t really have a choice, do I?” I swallowed my bite of bread. “It’s happening whether I like it or not, so I may as well embrace it. This is a huge opportunity, Marisol. I never thought I would be a mother.”

  “I think you’re going to be a great mother.” Candace bumped shoulders with me, and bit into her own lunch contentedly. I could practically hear her planning future play dates in her head. It felt good to know that at least one of my best friends didn’t think I was making a colossal mistake.

  “Hey, speaking of huge opportunities.” Marisol set her sandwich down, flopped into a nearby chair, and propped her feet onto the table. At least she had the decency to move a few feet away from the food we were preparing. “Or rather, lost opportunities.”

  Candace moved a chair across the kitchen, parking it right behind me. She pushed on my shoulders, forcing me to sit, then sat on the table between Marisol’s platform heels and my nearly-untouched lunch. “What’s up? Are you hearing the tick tock of your biological clock, too, Mar? Are you afraid to miss your opportunity?”

  She gagged. “No. Not in the slightest. Have you seen what happens to your goodies when you push a kid out? Like, seriously? It’s like Hamburger Helper afterward.”

  I pushed my sandwich away. “Well, I’m done.”

  “Sorry.” Marisol waved a hand dismissively. “I’m talking about Fletcher.”

  Suddenly the Eats and Treats kitchen was stiflingly hot. My five-minute flirting session with him at the grocery store had haunted me for days, and it’d taken every bit of my strength not to ask Marisol how their latest date had gone. I’d been hoping and praying her silence meant he’d dumped her.

  Candace perked up. “Oh, yeah? What’s the scoop? What opportunity did you miss with him? Did he not call after your date?”

  Marisol was aghast. “Be serious. They always call.”

  Damn. I blinked innocently at her, and prayed that my cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. “So what’s wrong then?”

  “Is he terrible in the sack?” Candace asked. “I know how much you hate that.”

  I suppressed a snort. Candace wasn’t lying. Marisol was very forthright with her opinions on her varying boyfriends’, ahem, bedroom skills. If they didn’t make her scream out swear words in Spanish, she didn’t consider them worth her time. And though I couldn’t believe what I was thinking, I hoped that Fletcher was terrible in bed. At least if he lacked certain talents in the bedroom, then I could go to sleep at night knowing he wasn’t making Marisol bellow ‘Ay caramba!’

  “That’s just it.” Marisol slapped her hand down on the metal table. “I wouldn’t know!”

  Gulping back a smile, I asked, “You haven’t slept with him yet?”

  She shook her head. “Three dates now, and he hasn’t laid a hand on me.”

  “He hasn’t even kissed you?” When Marisol shook her head, Candace’s mouth twitched. “What a jerk.”

  “Don’t mock me.” Marisol narrowed her eyes. “This is serious. I wore my thigh high boots on our last date.”

  My stomach clenched. “What? I thought you said you went to the movies.” When she just blinked at me, I added, “Who wears thigh high boots to see a romantic comedy?”

  She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Last time I wore them, we didn’t even make it out of my house that night.”

  Shuddering, I focused my attention on the zucchini cakes I’d been assembling before Candace arrived. “Your life is one long-running episode of Sex in the City, do you know that?”

  “Uh huh,” she said proudly.

  Candace polished off her sandwich, then brushed the crumbs off of her chest. “Just because he hasn’t tried to nail you in a broom closet yet doesn’t mean he doesn’t like you, Mar. That means he respects you.”

  I washed my hands, chuckling. “Respect? What’s that? Marisol doesn’t know that word.”

  “Ha, ha. Laugh it up, preggo.” Marisol took another bite of her sandwich and leaned back in her seat. “Okay. I get where you’re going with this, Candace, but what if I’m not looking for respect?”

  Candace sucked in a sharp breath, then released it slowly. “What woman isn’t looking for respect?”

  Marisol’s dark eyes rolled upward. “Well, it’s not like I want him to call me a whore and tell me to fetch him a beer, or anything. But what’s wrong with adding a little bit of passion to the mix?”

  “You’ll get to the passion, eventually.” Candace looked at me and shrugged. “Righ
t?”

  My throat clenched. I didn’t want the passion between Fletcher and Marisol to ever happen. I mean, I loved my friend. I really did. She was funny and would run someone over with her car if I asked her too. But did I see Marisol with someone as sweet and patient as Fletcher? Did I see her as a step-mother for his daughter? No way! Marisol was the type of woman that young girls went to when they needed French kissing pointers, not life advice like what college to attend or how to get over a broken heart. Marisol was too bold, too crass for mother-daughter heart-to-hearts.

  “I, uh, right,” I said. “With time. Lots of time. Some couples wait years before bringing in the passion. You know, they say abstinence is the new sex.”

  Both Candace and Marisol gaped at me, and the kitchen fell silent. I heard a car passing on the road outside, and the clock across the room ticked quietly.

  Marisol’s mouth pricked upward. “Bold words coming from someone who’s knocked up.”

  Candace slapped a hand over her mouth, giggling from behind her fingers. “Where did you that nugget of wisdom?”

  Glancing down at my slightly protruding stomach, my cheeks burned. “I just heard it somewhere. What I’m trying to say is—”

  “Oh, I know what you’re getting at.” Marisol stood up from her chair and walked around the table.

  I watched while she started the sink and soaped up her hands. Did Marisol really know? Was she so in tune with me that she knew I fantasized about her boyfriend night and day? Wondering whether or not he’d watched the latest episode of Culinary Countdown, or what his favorite Elvis song was? Did he like my hair at my last appointment, or…

  Oh, good Lord. I needed a life.

  “What am I getting at?” I cringed, preparing myself for her answer. Humiliation was imminent.

  Marisol dried her hands and faced us. “You don’t want me to sleep with Fletcher, because you’re worried that I’ll wind up in a situation like yours.” She gazed at me with a tilted head, and I just blinked at her. “You’re so sweet. But I don’t need you to be protective of me.”

  I almost laughed. She thought I was being protective? I felt Candace’s eyes on the side of my head, but ignored her. “Oh, well, okay,” I mumbled, going back to my work and praying I looked casual. I even added a yawn for good measure.